Shekel surges on hopes for gas production
02/07/2013 22:22
The Israeli currency reaches new highs; natural gas would allow Israel to import less oil and improve its balance of payments.
Tamar holds 240 billion cu.m. of gas. Photo: Courtesy
The shekel continued its six-month surge Thursday, closing at NIS 3.68 to the
dollar in Tel Aviv, its strongest in almost a year. It briefly traded lower on
February 8, 2012.
The shekel traded at 3.6938 per dollar as of 5:30 p.m.
in Tel Aviv, versus 3.6902 on Wednesday, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.
“The overall story is that the shekel is strengthening in
relation to most of the currencies in the nominal basket, not just the dollar,”
said Modi Shafrir, chief economist at I.L.S. Brokers in Tel Aviv.
One of
the culprits in the strengthening currency is the expectation of Israeli natural
gas on the market, he said.
Until now, Israel has had no natural gas of
its own, so it had to import it, a problem magnified by the frequent bombings of
the gas pipeline from Egypt since the revolution there. As a result, Israel had
to spend even more of its shekels on importing oil.
As its own natural
gas comes to the market, Shafrir said, Israel will be able to import less oil,
improving its balance of payments and further strengthening the shekel. Gas from
the Tamar field is expected to hit the market in April.
Though a strong
shekel is good for consumers and importers, an overly strong currency could
potentially weaken exports because it makes them more expensive for other
countries to purchase.
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer has
expressed an aversion to intervening in the currency market by buying dollars to
keep the shekel from strengthening too much. But he said he would if the
situation became extreme.
“I don’t think the Bank of Israel will
intervene until it falls to 3.6,” Shafrir said.
Israel’s foreign-exchange
reserves rose $2.511 billion in January to a record $78.417b., the central bank
reported Thursday.
The decline in the exchange rate comes despite
political circumstances that would usually push it up: uncertainty over the
budget and the process of forming a new government coalition, Fischer’s
announcement that he would be leaving his post in June and increasingly tense
geopolitical developments in Syria and Egypt.
Bloomberg contributed to
this report.